UK Minister: British Cabinet Was Told Nothing About GCHQ/NSA Spying Programs 85
dryriver writes "From the Guardian: 'Cabinet ministers and members of the national security council were told nothing about the existence and scale of the vast data-gathering programs run by British and American intelligence agencies, a former member of the government has revealed. Chris Huhne, who was in the cabinet for two years until 2012, said ministers were in "utter ignorance" of the two biggest covert operations, Prism and Tempora. The former Liberal Democrat MP admitted he was shocked and mystified by the surveillance capabilities disclosed by the Guardian from files leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. "The revelations put a giant question mark into the middle of our surveillance state," he said. "The state should not feel itself entitled to know, see and memorize everything that the private citizen communicates. The state is our servant." Huhne also questioned whether the Home Office had deliberately misled parliament about the need for the communications data bill when GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping headquarters, already had remarkable and extensive snooping capabilities. He said this lack of information and accountability showed "the supervisory arrangements for our intelligence services need as much updating as their bugging techniques."'"
Graft, money. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason these programs are kept secret (along with their budgets) from the general "civilian" government. It's because they're huge money pits. They're pork. Free money for security services contractors. It's not some boogeyman new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
It's a much, much, older and familiar monster. Greed.
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Also, the Queen said "no". We really wanted to tell you and all, but she was kind of a bitch about it.
Re:Graft, money. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason these programs are kept secret (along with their budgets) from the general "civilian" government. It's because they're huge money pits. They're pork. Free money for security services contractors. It's not some boogeyman new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
It's a much, much, older and familiar monster. Greed.
Funny, no one has suggested a new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
While all this surveillance is partly about money, that's not the whole of it (as I suspect you already know). Knowledge is power. These surveillance powers have already been used to conduct industrial espionage, intimidate political activists, blackmail public office holders and to provide secret evidence in criminal cases (mostly related to the drug war). All of these things are beneficial to the powers that be. In short these powers are used by the existing power structures to increase and enhance their power. This is why they are kept secret even from the people supposedly providing oversight.
I agree that this is a huge money train for all kinds of defense and other government contractors, and their stakeholders in office. But it's also about increasing power. So it might not be a "new world order shadow conspiracy", but the result is not too far off from that.
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So its not a "new world order", but just the "existing world power" conspiracy? While on the surface that sounds exactly like what a NWO conspiracy nut would like, somehow I doubt it. I think they need to rename what they are afraid of. I'm not exactly sure if they even know. A reporter went to the Bildenburg conference, to try and figure out what they were protesting, but only got vague references to fluoride related mind control and "awareness".
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At least they were doing what they said they were doing. What was the purpose of Occupy? Why Occupying stuff/places. That's something I, the potential protestor can understand and get behind. Who's streets?, our streets!
Bildenbug is all " new world order /vacines/ cancer mind control grrr". Just can't get behind that. Need to simplify and stay on message.
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Well, then the protesters really need to work on their marketing.
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"utter ignorance" is the default state of every legislative body in the world. Politicians tend to be the biggest blabbermouths in the world. Telling them about every covert national security program would guarantee that everyone, friend and foe, would have all the details in about 15 minutes. And believe it or not there are some things that do need to be kept secret when it comes to dealing with other countries. Every other country in the world does the exact same thing. If every government in the world cl
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So we have to subvert democracy in order to save it? No thanks.
Snowden is still a hero. At considerable personal cost he has exposed a domestic enemy of the people. Not only for the U.S. but for the U.K. as well. If he committed any sort of Espionage, it was FOR the people of the United States, the only legitimate power here.
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Politicians don't have the slightest clue about technology. They all studied PPE at Oxbridge and worked as a political adviser before becoming an MP. Most of them are scientifically illiterate.
Its not at all surprising that they don't have a clue how far GCHQ and the NSA have got. Even Slashdot readers are surprised by the scale of it.
In theory the NSA and GCHQ now have sufficient power to actually run their respective countries,
the big question is why aren't they? Lack of imagination? Prefer to pull the st
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There's a reason these programs are kept secret (along with their budgets) from the general "civilian" government. It's because they're huge money pits. They're pork. Free money for security services contractors. It's not some boogeyman new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
It's a much, much, older and familiar monster. Greed.
I agree, but the other reason it was kept a secret because it's wrong, and they know it. They don't want the law makers knowing about it because either they will shut it down, or take it away.
Or the law makers will do what they have been doing before they knew about it, nothing.
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In other words pompous self-aggrandizing politician learns his true standing in the pecking order and what the powers that be really consider his worth.
Re:I'm shocked, shocked (Score:5, Funny)
In other words pompous self-aggrandizing politician learns his true standing in the pecking order and what the powers that be really consider his worth.
You do realize that "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" were documentary and not comedy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister [wikipedia.org]
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You do realize that "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" were documentary and not comedy?
Possibly the most true and insightful comment I've read on Slashdot for a long time!
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I understand that when it was on, the lady was not for turning.
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"Yes, Minister" is used as an orientation manual. Apparently, new cabinet ministers and even backbenchers in both the UK and Canada (and probably Australia) use them as such. There is some really good material in the programs about what tactics the bureaucracy can use to stop things, and how to overcome the resistance.
Remember: Just because the civil service follows your instructions - does not mean anyone wants the result!
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You seem delighted to put him in his place. Unfortunately he also happened to be an elected minister and the only influence you have on how your country is run.
So if his standing in the pecking order is worthless, where does that leave the rest of us?
Re:I'm shocked, shocked (Score:5, Insightful)
His own reputation might be less than exemplary at this point, but I don't see that his ministerial position was particularly relevant here. Any MP, minister or otherwise, is the highest directly elected representative of their constituents in our government system. As a basic principle of representative democracy, it seems very dubious to me that anything like this should be "off limits" to someone in that position, or to people in that position acting collectively by asking questions in Parliament. I can accept reasonable arguments for keeping the specifics of individual cases or ongoing operations on a need-to-know basis and not routinely disclosing them to a few hundred MPs, but not the underlying principles and the existence of systemic practices.
From someone who has worked there... (Score:5, Interesting)
...Any MP, minister or otherwise, is the highest directly elected representative of their constituents in our government system. As a basic principle of representative democracy, it seems very dubious to me that anything like this should be "off limits" to someone in that position, or to people in that position acting collectively by asking questions in Parliament...
Look at the history.
Security Service, SIS and GCHQ are DIRECT descendants of the equivalent services which were running during WW2. At that time there were many things which the state was doing which would certainly NOT be presented to Parliament - for obvious reasons. Encryption capabilities, military strategy, operational data - many things would be kept secret. For good reason. And Parliament would not expect to be told about these matters.
In most cases the state structures set up at that time (for instance, Bombing Target Policy committees) were quite happy to close themselves down and return to civvy street when the war ended. Not so MI5 and MI6. They were involved in the diplomatic politics during the restructuring of Europe and seamlessly went into the Cold War. During the 1950s to 1970s many MPs were suspected of Communist sympathies - they would certainly not be told anything about the activities of the intelligence community.
By now that mindset is rock-solid. These people have always lived in a world where they were (secretly) defending democracy against the Nazis or the Reds. This stopped, suddenly, around 1990. Only 20-odd years ago. But they are still trying to work as they always have - in secrecy, with an unlimited budget, fighting on behalf of their country against an implacable and highly organised foe.
That foe no longer exists. So they are simply making him up. Kid hackers become Master Cyber-criminals, in the pay of the Chinese. Individual political activists with a grudge - Muslim or Chechen - who set off a bomb, become shadowy agents of a vast world conspiracy instead of individual murders who should be dealt with by the police. We bomb local politicians/gang leaders in the Middle East who are fighting their own local wars, and pretend that that we are saving Western civilisation.
Yes, it's partly the money. Working in the intelligence community is a comfy, well paid position with no competition. But it's also this mindset. Everyone who does not support you whole-heartedly is suspicious, and should not be told anything. It's standard World War paranoia - institutionalised....
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Yeah, you put in words what I was thinking for a while now. It's obvious that these problems aren't specific to the NSA or GCHQ. Rather they're due to a cold war mindset that too many senior civil servants and politicians seem unable to break out.
GCHQ has been hacking Belgacom to spy on the EU in Brussels. WTF? Why?! If they want to know what's going down in the EU then they can just ..... go ask. I mean the UK contributes its fair share of money to the EU, so what possible benefit is there to treating it
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio [wikipedia.org] and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension [wikipedia.org] shows the mindset of aspects of the EU intelligence community.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER [bbc.co.uk] is also insightful in recalling of the "Communist sympathies" years.
Yes now you have the computer power for the UK to finally do what it had to beg the NSA for years ago.
A generation of total digital information awareness, been offered back to tame poli
Adam Curtis wrote some great stuff about this (Score:1)
This makes fascinating reading. [bbc.co.uk]
He tells a bunch of stories about kooky paranoid MI5 spies and the general incompetence of the organization. Great stuff.
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"the supervisory arrangements for our intelligence services need as much updating as their bugging techniques."
Hear, hear.
Well, it'd be a start.
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You mean National Security Council (Score:2, Informative)
He was on the NSC, the body in government that overseas the security services.
Take your propaganda cold fjord and fuck off. Yeh, we get it, anyone who speaks out will be attacked with propaganda, and anti terror laws.
Do you get it? You are not defenders of democracy, you are the Stasi, you are the ones undermining democracy.
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Web traffic must be significantly compressible (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep hearing astonishment at how so much web traffic can be stored with relative ease.
Sure, it's going to be a lot of data, but a whole lot of that data is duplication, and where there is duplication there can be compression. And where it's not, even at level 6/7 you can identify significant commonality (facebook user home page) and simply store the delta.
It's not like they're storing every byte sent and received by every Internet user at all.
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There's an app [bbc.co.uk] for that.
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It's not like they're storing every byte sent and received by every Internet user at all.
My understanding is that the GCHQ stores has a cache with every byte of British internet data for the past three days. Which is pretty impressive.
What will he/they do about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the big question. Now that you know you were duped, spied on, and the citizens you are supposed to be serving have been taken advantage of, what will you do?
My guess is nothing, it'll be USA part 2. A few bands will file suit, everything will be classified secret, and nothing will happen. It's not just the US that needs to be considering a revolt, the UK is just as bad as we are in nearly everything.
Interesting to hear Russel Brand talk about his own country here in the US, since we really get little information that is not "party line".
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Indeed, there is no information today, it seems, that isn't like it's on a party line (for those who remember what a "party line" used to be).
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He's a comedian. A comedian's job is to make you laugh, and the easiest way to do that is Satire. It's harder to control comedy and satire than printed media. I can give you a hefty list of US Comedians that use satire to show you how shitty the US was becoming and has become, starting with George Carlin, and including Lewis Black.
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Russel Brand is a jerk, do some research. He dumped Katy Perry with a text message because she wasn't ready to be his baby farm. With Jonathon Ross he phoned an Actor live on air and told the audience and the answerphone that he had fucked the Actors granddaughter. He is indeed a tool.
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Wow! No I am not going to research his personal life! Quite frankly you should be alarmed that you know that much about his personal life.
So What ?! (Score:1)
The UK takes it's orders direct from the US, Israel and the banks.
Why should ministers need to know anything ?
Liar Liar Pants On Fire (Score:1)
This would be the same Chris Huhne who was jailed for eight months for perjury?
Yes, yes it would.
Connected? (Score:1)
Nobody on the National Security Council has denied his claim that the NSC was never informed. Just to re-iterate that, THE PARLIAMENTARY BODY TO OVERSEE THE SECURITY AGENCIES WAS NEVER TOLD ABOUT THEIR MASS SURVEILLANCE OF BRITS BY THE SECURITY AGENCY.
Not least because the laws to make it legal were never passed.
Ahh, but the NSA and the President knew. Probably creeps like Feinstein knew, but not Parliament.
Now we have a situation where the NSA can spy on government, newspapers, any British comms and GCHQ a
Huhne not respected by the oxbridge fraterniy (Score:2)
Huhne is a businessman, and a 'johny come lately; to the iffy and corrupt politics route that is the ppe, or the fast track to m15 and m16. The French have a similar setup
Oxbridge talks to Oxbridge only on matters of its choosing and distrusts people such as the non member as he is.
Of course they didn't tell a Lib Dem. (Score:2)
The first thing he'd have done was go blab it (anonymously, if necessary) to the newspapers.
(They didn't tell Labor and the Tories because they'd have blabbed at cocktail parties.)
Re:A minister for 2 years? (Score:5, Informative)
Why would they tell every minister everything, or every Congressman everything, when far too many of them have their own agendas from an extreme third party, or can't keep it in their pants, or are in and out in 2 years.
He was a privy councillor and member of the National Security Council, so would have been security vetted. There's ten members of the latter at the moment, so it's a fairly exclusive club.
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Let me try to open your eyes, under the assumption you want them opened.
How does knowing about the existence of a program equal in depth knowledge of the details in the program? There is no such magical connection, though there are many people that will tell you there is.
For example, knowing that the ATF is buying guns in the US and giving them to foreign people is something every congressman should be aware of. They should have all had a chance to critique the spending bill, and deny such a foolish act b
The easier path (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission.
Step 1) Run a secret, illegal surveillance program with no oversight
Step 2) When a terrorist attack is averted, locate actionable intelligence about it within the data previously gathered
Step 3) If and when the public face of the government (those little people who have to stand for elections) finds out about your secret, illegal surveillance program, show them the data from Step 2 and claim the attack would have succeeded without your secret, illegal surveillance program
Step 4) Accept some toothless, ineffective oversight measures and continue as you were
There's nothing complicated about any of this. Ignorant legislators behave like frightened masses of people when you frighten them. They'll do anything they're told to do by anyone who projects authority and control over a scary situation. Whether it's impending market collapse, terrorist attacks, or the next killer plague, frightened masses will let you do just about anything you want if you promise to keep them safe and convince them you can do it.
This is the ultimate flaw in every system of government.
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Step 5) ???
Step 6) Profit!
Never believe anything! (Score:2)
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied. Does that fit here? Maybe... in a way I think.
"The state is our servant" (Score:3)
This quote combined with what the NSA/GCHQ have done reminds me a lot of "...or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm." The state should serve us, yes. The state should prevent us from harm, yes. But there is a point at which we are no longer served by harm prevention, and the NSA has clearly passed it. Even if they started off with good intentions initially (as implausible as that may be), by simply doing their jobs well they have come over to the dark side, and that's pretty interesting to me. There aren't that many good things you can do so well they start becoming bad.
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Which UK citizens make a big deal out of being British subjects? The few Irish without Irish citizenship who are still considered British subjects?
Anyways the Queen is only part of the government with the major part being Parliament and the major part of Parliament being the House of Commons who are elected by UK citizens and responsible to them. And the Queen herself serves the people and if she screws up she can be removed. As recently as 1936 a King was encouraged to quit as he had fascist tendencies and
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Anyways the Queen is only part of the government with the major part being Parliament and the major part of Parliament being the House of Commons who are elected by UK citizens and responsible to them. And the Queen herself serves the people and if she screws up she can be removed. As recently as 1936 a King was encouraged to quit as he had fascist tendencies and it was considered that he wouldn't serve the people well.
Though for a full-on kicking out of a monarch — as opposed to a gentle "jump before you're pushed" — you've got to go back to 1688. That triggered a (mostly minor, except in Ireland) civil war.
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We're not, we're British Citizens as of 1983, and were formally Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies since 1948. The term British Subject applies to a very small minority of people who weren't from places that were members of the Commonwealth before 1948. See this article [wikipedia.org].
don't look at me... (Score:2)
Cabinet ministers and members of the national security council were^H^H^H^H told^H^H^H^H^H^ asked nothing about the existence and scale of the vast data-gathering programs...
FTFY
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There was a "Yes Minister" episode that went over this ground, let's see if I can find some quotes:
This isn't what I was looking for, but it is a start:
Security services have become uncontrollable? (Score:2)
Have we finally reached the stage where the security services are totally uncontrollable and have so much money and resources that they are no longer accountable or controllable?
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The UK could offer very little to the GCHQ but limits on budgets and endless 'new' ideas about crime fighting and using call transcripts/logs in court.
The GCHQ would then have to invent amazing ways to present its call transcripts/logs in court without exposing methods, brands, experts or the embarrassing totality of Soviet spying.
Generationally the GCHQ was closer to the NSA, US mil and their clean well funded
We don't believe you! (Score:2)